BARTON, Vt. (AP) – Students, teachers and staff in the Orleans Central School District will be going to school over the holiday weekend to make up the four days lost to a strike.

The extra days will be needed to ensure the students in the seven elementary schools and the Lake Region Union High School are in school enough to complete the school year and allow the seniors to graduate on time.

On Thursday the school boards in the district ratified the new teacher contract that was hammered out early Wednesday morning after the strike closed elementary schools in Albany, Barton, Brownington, Glover, Irasburg and Orleans and Lake Region High School.

Teachers approved the contract early Wednesday morning after a nine-hour mediation session ended the strike.

In a plan approved by the Vermont commissioner of education, students and teachers will return to the classroom for half days Saturday and Monday, Memorial Day, said Superintendent Ron Paquette.

Instead of having Tuesday off for a teacher training day, elementary students will have a full day of school. Lake Region students will have a half day.

Elementary schools will stay open with June 20 as the final day of school. Lake Region’s final day is June 17, with graduation as previously scheduled on Sunday, June 19, Paquette said.

Teachers said they would incorporate Memorial Day and its history into Monday’s classes.

The school board and union negotiators compromised on the three key issues that led to the strike: sharing health insurance increases and salary increases, said Michelle Hall, president of the Orleans Central Education Association.

The new contract is retroactive to July 1, 2004.

Teachers had wanted the board to share the burden of increases in health insurance premiums, asking that the boards pay 85 percent and the teachers 15 percent. The board wanted to continue with a financial cap, paying the equivalent of 73 percent of premium increases.

Over the next two years, the boards will share the burden of any premium increases, accepting an 85 percent to 15 percent split that is similar to what other school districts pay, Hall said.

Teachers will receive a raise on the base salary of 4.25 percent, retroactive for this school year. The raise is 3.5 percent over the next two years of the contract, Hall said.